A position and orientation sensor, such as a magnetic position and orientation sensor, can be attached to a transducer probe to determine the position and orientation of the sensor with respect to a transmitter. To correlate the location of the sensor to the location of an image plane produced by the probe, it is often required to calibrate the position and orientation of the sensor with the position and orientation of the image plane. The calibration step can be difficult to perform, especially for sonographers who are unfamiliar with position and orientation sensor technology.
The requirement of calibrating transducer probe/sensor pairs can limit the widespread use of position and orientation sensors with ultrasonic transducer probes. For example, some transducer probe/sensor pairs are calibrated on site by a technician who stores the calibration data on an ultrasound imaging system that is to be used in conjunction with the probe/sensor pair. If a sonographer desires to use the probe with a different ultrasound imaging system, the calibration step typically needs to be repeated with that different ultrasound imaging system. Because many sonographers find the calibration step difficult to perform, in practice, probe/sensor pairs are often used only with a single ultrasound imaging system. As another example, consider position and orientation sensors that are removably attachable to an ultrasonic transducer probe. Although removably attachable sensors can be used with more than one transducer probe, many removably attachable sensors are used only with the probes for which they are initially calibrated since many sonographers are unable or unwilling to calibrate the sensors with different probes.
There is a need, therefore, for a medical diagnostic ultrasonic transducer probe and imaging system for use with a position and orientation sensor that overcomes these difficulties.
The present invention is defined by the following claims, and nothing in this section should be taken as a limitation on those claims.
By way of introduction, the preferred embodiments described below provide a medical diagnostic ultrasonic transducer probe and imaging system for use with a position and orientation sensor. In one preferred embodiment, an ultrasonic transducer probe comprises a position and orientation sensor and a memory device comprising calibration data for the position and orientation sensor. The memory device is adapted to provide the calibration data to a medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging system coupled with the ultrasonic transducer probe.
In another preferred embodiment, a medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging system comprises a memory device comprising a plurality of position and orientation sensor calibration data. Each of the plurality of position and orientation sensor calibration data is associated with a respective ultrasonic transducer probe family. In operation, identification of a probe family of an ultrasonic transducer probe is provided to the ultrasound system. The ultrasound system then selects the position and orientation sensor calibration data corresponding to the identified probe family.
The preferred embodiments will now be described with reference to the attached drawings.